Biography

Alexander Robertson

Biography from the Archives of askART

From Scotland, Alexander Robertson was a miniaturist and landscape painter and painting teacher who studied in London emigrated to New York City in the early 1790s. He joined his brother, Archibald Robertson (1765-1835), to co-direct the Columbian Academy of Painting. Organized at the instigation of prominent New Yorkers who wanted art education for their children, the Academy was the first art school in New York City and one of the first in America.

Alexander taught drawing in watercolor and pen and ink and was very active in the American Academy of Art, which he joined in 1817 and served as secretary from 1817 to 1825. He did a drawing of Mount Vernon that was engraved and published in London in 1800.

Robertson died in New York City in 1841.

Sources include:Groce & Wallace, Dictionary of Artists in AmericaPeter Hastings Falk (editor), Who Was Who in American Art

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